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Boyfriend Doesn't Have Ebola. Probably.

I took Boyfriend to the Emergency Room last night because he was vomiting up vast quantities of what I thought was blood but actually it was just Craisins. You guys, if you feel like you may become violently ill in the near future, stay away from red food. Failure to do so may create an atmosphere of unnecessary panic and chaos.

Anyway, the doctor wanted to make sure that Boyfriend didn't have SARS or stomach AIDS or something, so he had to poke him a lot. While he was doing this to Boyfriend, he pointed to a little reference chart on the wall and asked Boyfriend to rate his pain::

You've probably seen some version of that chart before. You may also have noticed how inadequate it is at helping you. Based on the faces, this is my interpretation of the chart:

0: Haha! I'm not wearing any pants!

2:Awesome! Someone just offered me a free hot dog!

4: Huh. I never knew that about giraffes.

6: I'm sorry about your cat, but can we talk about something else now? I'm bored.

8: The ice cream I bought barely has any cookie dough chunks in it. This is not what I expected and I am disappointed.

10:You hurt my feelings and now I'm crying!

None of that is medically useful and it doesn't even have all the numbers, so I made a better one with all the numbers:

0: Hi. I am not experiencing any pain at all. I don't know why I'm even here.

1: I am completely unsure whether I am experiencing pain or itching or maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth.

2: I probably just need a Band Aid.

3: This is distressing. I don't want this to be happening to me at all.

4: My pain is not fucking around.

5:Why is this happening to me??

6:Ow. Okay, my pain is super legit now.

7: I see Jesus coming for me and I'm scared.

8: I am experiencing a disturbing amount of pain. I might actually be dying. Please help.

9: I am almost definitely dying.

10: I am actively being mauled by a bear.

11: Blood is going to explode out of my face at any moment.

Too Serious For Numbers: You probably have ebola. It appears that you may also be suffering from Stigmata and/or pinkeye.

I think your chart is infinitely more realistic than that stupid doctor's one. from now on, whenever I feel like crap, want to stay home from school, and my mom asks "how are you feeling?"; I'll show her your chart and be like "don't doubt my pain, woman!" while pointing angrily at 8 or 10 or something. She'll believe me then, I bet.

I want a chart like that to outline erotic arousal. I feel like we could sell it to undersatisfied woman around the world and get super duper rich and oh wait am I supposed to be asking about how the boyfriend is doing cause I'd much rather just work toward global domination as per usual?

I'd glad you started with a straight face. Sometimes I laugh when I'm in pain, but those are small pains that are kind of mixed up with funny situtations. Like spinning around in my wheely chair and banging my knee on the metal filing cabinet. That hurts. But it's also funny.

Also, your interpretation of the real doctor's office chart is perfect. Whenever I'm there I think about child birth and how it was pretty much #10 times A THOUSAND and then I get really irrate and my doctor is always snippy because I'm in full asshole mode by the time she shows up.

Fabulous! I love your chart and will take it to my fibro doc the next time I go. I will point to the one with blood dripping out the eyes and say, "THIS is my pain, and THIS is why you need to give me better drugs."

I'm glad it's nothing serious (the 'graveside' image I posted on the forum had me wondering, "What if he dies and I've been totally inappropriate with this picture?", but then I shrugged my shoulders and posted it anyway).

Your interpretations of both graphs are hilarious. I look forward to your representations of the erotic chart that Ben suggested, above.

I really, really hate that chart (their chart, not yours). Everytime they ask me to rate my pain I want to scream, "It's a 12!!!" but then I think they'll think I'm trying to score the good drugs (which I totally am but they don't need to know that and also I'm a giant wuss so any pain is like a 40 on the richter scale). I also think everyone who sees me think I totally look like a druggie but I forget that I no longer wear the goth makeup because I'm a GRANDMOTHER now (poor planning having a kid while I was in college) and I look old and no one expects old, respectable people to be trying to score the good drugs and so I can scream its a 12 and no one will think anything of it...and yeah I hate those charts. I'm glad your boyfriend doesn't have ebola because that is freaking contagious.

They have these same kinds of charts ("feelings" pictures) in some special ed classrooms, to better allow the kids to express themselves. One time I walked in and this kid was screaming his head off (like #10 on your chart) while pointing to a face on the chart that looked exactly like what he was doing. Like in case it wasn't clear.

We don't have those at our doctors office!!! Once I broke my foot and when they asked me how much I hurt I didn't have ANY idea what to say, so I just said 5...your chart doesn't have a 5 so I'm going to add it.

5:IT'S LIKE I'M ON FIRE AND ALL OF MY NOSE HAIRS ARE GETTING PULLED OUT AND I SAT ON A NAIL!!!!!! Oh wait, it feels a little better but probably I should go to the hospital just in case I have Ebola.

Boy do I agree with you. Their #2 is definitely not the face of "Hurts little bit." In fact, the disconnect between that face and "Hurts little bit" is so jarring as to make it potentially an awesome t-shirt.

I am super fucking tempted to proudly display your scale of pain in the cube of awesome. It would no doubt prove useful in effectively articulating just how much pain someone else's stupid is causing me.

Don't you think there is something odd about (or to be more accurate not odd) about the pain scale. I demand my right not to have to express my pain in an even way....There should be an expensive and ultimately waste of time investigation in to the declining use of odd numbers in medical practices, perhaps Sesame Street could lead a campaign for the protection of odd numbers...

It took me a really long time to stop laughing which is kind of sad because we're talking about hurt people here and now I'm wondering what kind of person I really am laughing at hurt people....

Then I realized I need a chart like this but for urgency. When project managers come up to me at work and demand things done NOW because it's so URGENT and the boss is going to rip arms and legs off and decapitate people if this stuff doesn't get done and now all these people's fates depend on me it would be super useful to have a chart to point and so I could calmly:1. Ask them to rate their emergency.2. Compare their face to the chart to see if they're exaggerating.

You have no idea how happy you have made me. I always felt like the facial expressions were completely disconnected to the number scale. Totally fucked up.Also I am so happy to have found your blog tonight and you can imagine my joy when I discovered you are in Hamilton while I am from Missoula. Happy days

Your wit astounds me. I literally almost peed my pants just now, while crying, because of your new chart. I showed it to my friend who is in Physician's Assistant school. She said she just might put that up in her office one day.

you need to sell this shit to hospitals and doctors ASAP. I mean like every last one of them. I've never seen the original chart but everytime I go to the hospital (read: a lot) they ask me to rate the pain. And I'm all, well my 8 may not be your 8 so can we discuss this further? Then they roll their eyes and I'm worried they put danger in my IV.

Same thing happened to me! I had eaten a beet salad and forgotten about it, then had some mussels and fries. So when I had blood red diarrhea later on, I of course figured I was dying and we rushed me to the ER. I did figure it out before I got anally probed, though!

honestly, i don't even understand why those charts are relevant for adults. at age 25, i'm pretty sure i could accurately describe how much pain i'm in without pointing to a chart. but if they insisted on presenting me with a chart, i'd rather it be yours. because then at least it'd be funny. except in the event my pain was from a broken rib. i hear laughing hurts when you've got a broken rib.

I'm going to be having a baby at any minute now (the people in elevators keep asking me not to have it there...um...OK?), and I'm TOTALLY printing out your chart to bring with me to the hospital to point to when someone asks me how much it hurts.Thank you for this service to humanity.

When I went to the ER for stabby gallbladder pains last year, I was definitly near an 8 or 9 on your chart. So much dry heaving. So much crying. Thank God for morphine or I might have lost it right then and there...

I recently had a kidney stone. not fun. very painful and i feel it is safe to say that i went through all 10 of your stages. but for me number 10 was give me some fucking drugs or i am going to get violent.

OMG I need to write to the AMA and send them your lovely list. They should SO replace the stupid-pain-charty-thing with yours. I mean, 11 is like childbirth before the spinal/epidural. 6 is like stubbing your toe (at least for those first few seconds.) 13 is like when my brother almost died with 22 compound fractures in his shin bone and now comes with metal plates in his leg. Oh, that made my childbirth stories pale in comparison...let me tell you.

i work in a hospital. and i have to tell you...i had a HARD time fighting the urge to replace all of our pain scales with yours. i do believe we would eliminate half of the belly-acher's if this was the pain scale model.

I have never in my life seen one of those charts before, they seem kinda rediculous, can't people just explain using their like mouths and stuff? Anyway I think yours is much better and you should definitley send it to them.

Thanks for taking my almost credited credit off, for inspiring the odd numbers on your chart.....I feel like a five year old who's gold start got put against someone else's name (But I knew it was mine) only to find a couple of days later it got removed altogether. Have you been studying George Orwell

I laughed so hard, I printed it and brought it into work (I'm a physical therapist), then we all laughed our asses off and I hung it up in the kitchen. Then I had to bring one of the orthopedic surgeons over to see it and he laughed his ass off.......so you just might see your chart printed in some orthopedic textbook some day! Thanks for making our day!

Thanks for this. I had a placental abruption in 1993 which nearly killed me (lost the baby, too) and so when I go in the docs office and they show me this chart I always end up saying things like, "look, my 10 is a placental abruption with contractions that NEVER STOPPED until they put me under general anesthesia, so if I say I am at 5, that does not mean I need a damn Motrin."

It's really very simple: 10/10 pain is ebola pain. If you think you have 20/10 pain, then adjust than in your mind and call it a ten. But know that if you rate your pain a ten, I reserve the right to kick you in the nuts and break your fingers. Your pain is already the highest it can be; it cant get worse!

Allie, as a nurse, I approve this new and improved pain scale. I will take this too work and lobby for it's incorporation to our practice. I am sure our patients will think it is far superior and much more appropriate.

Every time I'm asked to rate my pain, I start off saying, "Okay, I've ruptured a disk. I've had pain so bad it made me pass out. I *know* what a 10/10 is." 'Cause they tend to think that if I say my pain is 5 or 6 out of 10, then it's not that severe.

Here's my top-of-pain-scale rankings:10/10 is unconscious from pain. 9/10 is pain so intense that I can't speak. 8/10 is pain so bad I can only speak to attempt to communicate the pain. If I'm coherent but the pain is seriously interfering with my motor capacities, it's 7 or below.

I once watched someone banging on a counter, demanding to be seen immediately, because he had 10/10 pain. BS, man. You can stand, you can speak, you clearly don't KNOW what 10/10 pain is.

I so need this when I end up in the ER for my kidney infections. I get up to a 9-10 and when they ask me to rate my pain I just scream in agony. I think stapling your little chart to my chest and circling the appropriate face is just what I need! <3

This is one of the most hilarious things I have ever read... I was laughing out loud at work which just makes me look like some crazy person.... OH GREAT I have turn into that homeless person pushing the cart and talking to an orange

Thanks for posting this. Excellent representation of my own thoughts and feelings of that chart. I've always hoped that those were mostly for people who speak English as a second language or something. Because I've found them to be pretty useless when you are capable of describing your pain with words rather than a number associated with a smiley or not so smiley face.

The weird thing about all of this is that this pain chart (formally known as the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale) was originally for PEDIATRIC patients, who have trouble communicating their degree of pain, and yet I keep seeing references to it being used for adults -- seemingly inappropriately (as you point out, it seems a little dorky to use it for grown-ups who have many colourful ways of expressing their discomfort.

Anyway, I forwarded your proposed chart to my mother, an MD, and she enjoyed it immensely. I can only assume the Brosh Grownupiatric FACES of Indescribable Agony and Bear-Mauling chart will soon come into standardized use.

I have never been to your blog before, so now I'm all grateful to Skwigg's twitter page. I am snickering madly over your pain chart. I am going to print it out and take it to my doctor to put on her wall. I'm sure she will, although she may have to **** out the swearwords since people bringing their children to see her might get all pissy about it. Actually, I suppose the bleeding eyeballs might offend some parents too, but what the hell.

"I'm super creepy and totally capable of finding you."--win for best comment form message.

My husband works at a children's hospital and has the regular doctor's pain chart on the back of his name tag. I told him he should print this one out and tape it there instead. I'm almost 98% sure he'd get a raise if the hospital wasn't so poor.

This chart is actually accurate! Docs in hospital keep telling me "there is no 12" and I screamed there was! I think it is because most health professionals have never suffered from a chronic or severe condition before. I am sending this to all my friends who get Twelves!

During my last ear infection, the doctor asked me how bad it hurt. Compared to giving birth a kidney stones, I said 4. When he talked about sticking a needle in my ear to relieve the pain, I got very excited about it. My husband and my doctor exchanged a weird look. I didn't understand it at the time. Now it makes perfect sense... According to your chart I should have said my pain is an 8.

I have *multiple* chronic pain issues, and have always hated these stupid charts. Your new one kicks all kind of ass. It just plain rocks. I've experienced the level 12 business- lets just say that shattering your hip is definitely a 12 and leave out the many cuss words I normally think of at the same time thoughts of that incident pass through my mind. Any time a steady stream of dilaudid and fentanyl keeps a person at an 8, you know it's not pretty.

But while I'm utterly capable of smiling while in pain, I can smile and laugh right up to an 8. Comes from living every day at an average of 5.5. If I stopped smiling every time it hurt, I would never smile. So those stupid smiley faces make me want to punch people. Alas, going around punching out the stupid docs who are supposed to give me pain drugs is likely not a good idea.

First and foremost, this made me laugh so hard that I'm counting it as my workout for the day. In fact, since it's 12:43 AM, I'm calling it my workout for yesterday too.

You should get grant money for this. It's a friggin public service. I just spent the last week of med school learning everything about diarrhea. This alone made up for the complete lack of funny in that week. Surely there is a ginormous government grant available for maintaining the sanity of medical students.

I totally feel you and Boyfriend with the Craisins. One time I thought I had colon cancer but really I had just eaten way too much red velvet cake in a short period of time. So I like to think it's a common error.

I love asking patients to rate their pain on a scale from 1 to 10; the looks they give me are ALMOST as good as the ones I get when I ask "how would you describe your pain"? (The number one response to that: "It hurts.") But this is important stuff for doctors to find out. Even though it's pretty freaking lame. I have always felt the need to be a smart ass and respond with "ummm, 5.2 maybe?" Take that pain scale. That's probably why karma always sticks me with the "it hurts" patients.

Haha, I'm in medical school right now, and the pain scale is one of the things we're taught to ask in taking a history of present illness. I got to that part of my practical exam yesterday and cracked up laughing in the middle of the exam room. Other students probably thought I was nuts, this pain scale is awesome :)

it's not just that there is a disconnect between the faces and the words on the original chart. I mean, if the doctor is showing me this, I'm obviously already in the doctor's office. I'm not going in for a pain I can smile through. I regularly suffer headaches I'd rank a 10 on their scale. Pain elsewhere doesn't really bother me, I'm not likely to seek medical attention until it's a 5 or so on their scale.

If I'm in the emergency room, it must already be worse than a 5 and/or fluids are escaping somehow. Anything less and I would have waited until the McHMO could make an appointment next Tuesday during regular office hours. So give me tests/drugs and a bed upstairs, STAT!

I was in a bad car accident last summer, and when you're in ICU they ask you every six hours what your pain level is. My Boyfriend linked me to this, since this is pretty much what my mental chart was.

OMG that is brilliant. I cried with laughter for about 5 minutes straight! You genuinely brightened my day - thankyou so much! I am so printing it out and giving it to my SO - currently a junior doctor who agrees that the current pain chart sucks.

You need to patent this shit - I'm totally printing it out and taking it to my specialist appointments. And kicking myself for not thinking of drawing something similar sooner. I'm actually cracking up despite cramps that rate a 6 or so. You rock.

I just happened to stumble across this post today and I'm laughing so hard I'm at least at Level Six on your improved pain chart. Level Seven is definitely my favorite. I'll have to be sure to show this to the people at my local pain clinic!

old RN said... There is nothing more fun than having some smart ass M.D. as a patient and pulling out the good ole pain chart to help them describe thier pain. Makes the shift go lots faster....espcially if he happens to be a short nuerologist....

This should be in every doctors office, it would have been useful yesterday with my brother after getting knocked off his bike...without context he started treating the question like "I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10. Try and guess!"

OMG! I got to # 7 and started falling off my chair, whilst stamping my feet and laughing so hard that my son kept telling me to breath, just breath. I just found you via your Alots and I love you, I really, really love you.